Sales of products on the internet are often limited to sales by use of credit or debit card numbers or other payment schemes that do not require the transmittal of payment documents or negotiable instruments. The customer enters the product information or code along with a shipping or mailing address together with the customer's credit or debit card number into the seller's computer. The seller's computer can subsequently verify the credit or debit card number and submit the charge to the credit or debit card company or bank prior to or simultaneous with authorization of the sale and the eventual shipment of the ordered product or products. However, fear of stealing, fraud or misuse of credit or debit card numbers has caused many prospective purchasers to avoid submitting such card numbers over the internet or telephone.
Mail order sales can be employed in place of sales over the internet. A mail order sale is conducted by a customer sending in a purchase order form listing the product or products and other purchase information together with a payment document or negotiable instrument such as a check, money order, cash, credit card authorization document or the like. The seller employs personnel for entering the purchase and shipping information from the purchase order form into a computer along with verifying the payment document. However, such data entry into a computer adds to the cost of conducting sales and in some instances may cost as much as or more than the price or profit of a product being purchased. Additionally, mistakes in data entry further add to the cost of conducting sales. Consequently many sellers of products on the internet prohibit sales involving mail orders with payment documents or negotiable instruments such as checks, money orders, cash, credit card authorization documents or the like.
Machine readable codes, such as bar codes, 2D codes or the like, are used in many types of transactions. Various companies, including utility companies, have computers with code readers for reading account numbers printed on a returned portion of a bill to properly identify and credit payment to an account. Bar codes are used to identify a product and to call the product name and price stored in a computer to a cash register, to control and track the path of articles being shipped, to sort and direct mail, and to identify library card holders, hospital patients or entry card holders. Other prior art suggestions for use of machine readable codes include identifying computer stored addressees for evaluating the effectiveness of mail advertising, automatically cataloging and storing pictorial and/or written sections of information in the form of 35-mm slides, X-rays, store catalog pages, etc., for generating audio signals transmittable over telephone lines to control operation of equipment such as a VCR at a called station, to order products, and to pay bills.